Chickpea Salad with Chicken Sausage

I made a variation of a chick pea salad last week. This salad is feta, chickpeas, spinach, sundried tomatoes, pesto, and greek dressing. It's easy to make and no cooking is required. I decided to eat it with the spinach fontina chicken sausages I had left in the freezer. I grilled the sausages on our mini grill, and sliced them up to mix with the salad. They went so well together! And on top of that I opened the bottle of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc I had bought earlier in the semester. I love this region's wines, and I really developed a taste for Sav Blancs when I was abroad. The oaky sweetness of the wine went extremely well with this dish and the dish made the wine taste better as well. I was impressed that I was able to recognize that this wine would go really well with this meal and it made me happy. I've started trying to pair alcohol that I enjoy with meals that I like. It's another whole set of culinary skills!

Pumpkin Pie Mini Cakes

So guess what!? It's autumn in the states and that means it's finally pumpkin season again!!!!!!! This means I can go wild with pumpkin flavored things and make some great pumpkin recipes. To start the season off right I made these neat pumpkin pie cakes. I used this Pinterest recipe, and basically followed it to the letter (minus the whipped cream topping), so feel free to refer to it there. The thing that was so tasty and intriguing about these cupcakes is that the inside had the spongy moist consistency of pie. And it tasted like pie too! It was really strange and i've never had anything like it before, but they were strangely addictive. I made mini ones since we only have mini cupcake tins, but I think this recipe would be better with a full size cupcake pan. Also I would put Cool Whip on top of them next time (though we did have some leftover chocolate frosting and I put that on some of them, and it was AMAZING). This was a fun and easy recipe to do, nice if you are craving cupcakes. However, I tend to like pumpkin pie better, so next time with all of these ingredients available I'd just make a pie instead. 

Labor Day Meal

My mom always makes a huge cookout on Labor Day, so I decided I wanted BBQ style food too! I made myself 3 of my favorites (all things I've previously made on this blog) A black bean burger, with sweet potato fries, and sweet spicy veggie salad. I also had a bottle of cider (Angry Orchard is my preferred American brew). This time around I had my black bean burger with guacamole, bbq sauce, sautéed red onions, and smoked gouda cheese. Yes it was amazing. I've also gotten so much better at making sweet potato fries. I've stopped steaming the potato in the microwave first, also I've gotten better at cutting them cleanly. Cook around 400F for 25 minutes and they're perfectly crispy. 

All in all a really fun and yummy meal of old favorites. Nothing really special to report, other than this was my first kinda involved meal in the new apartment. Our kitchen is much smaller, so that has taken some getting used to. Good thing I got to practice by sharing a kitchen with limited surfaces with 6 other people in Oz! 

Amaretto Tiramisu

 So I decided to make some Tiramisu. I've never made this dessert before, and the fact that it is no bake, combined with it being boozy made me want to try it out. It took me awhile to find the ladyfingers, but I finally found them at United Provisions on the Loop. I make this I ended up basically following the instructions on the package of said lady fingers. I mixed egg yolks with sugar, and combined that with whipped egg whites and marscapone cheese. That made the creamy stuff. Then I dipped the lady fingers in a mixture of brewed coffee, Amaretto, and Bailey's. I dipped each side for about a second. My roommate cautioned me not to dip them too long or the dessert would be overpowered by alcohol and get super soggy. It was really good advice. I layered the ladyfingers, lining the pan with them. Then I sprinkled coco powder on top then layered on the cream filling. Then more coco, then more lady fingers, then coco, then filling, you get the idea. I did this until the pan was filled. Then I stuck it in the fridge to settle. The recipe said that it would need 3 hours to settle, but realistically it needs about 24 to harden to the right consistency. Also I noticed that it tastes better the second and third days, because the flavors have time to permeate the cookies and really blend extremely well.

Thoughts on this Dessert:

• For a first try I was really happy with this. I'd love to make it in a larger portion so that it is easier to share with lots of people.
• Construction doesn't take very long, but waiting for it to settle obviously does.
• The longer it sits the better, I'm glad that I now know this. I felt bad because I had friends waiting to eat it the night I made it and they had to come back to taste it the next day.
• The combination of coffee, and liquors was great! I'm particularly partial to both Bailey's and Amaretto so I loved it, but my friends agreed that the flavors meshed extremely well.
• I'd love to try this with different flavor profiles! Matcha Tiramisu anyone haha? Also though I could see myself doing this in an orange chocolate variety. I would put orange zest in the filling and use Grand Mariner as the alcohol to soak the cookies in. 

A fun first time dessert. I'm glad it turned out so well!

Baked Cinnamon Apple Cider Donuts

This is a very delayed post about my Donut adventures with my mom and sister. My mom bought donut pans about a year ago and had yet to try them. So one afternoon the three of us decided to make donuts together. We agreed on apple cinnamon donuts, since we loved the homemade ones from our local apple orchard. We used spiced apple cider to give the donuts the apple flavor. Also my sister came up with the awesome idea to shake the donuts in a paper bag of cinnamon sugar to coat them. These donuts ended up tasting good… but not like what we expected them to. They were less cakey and less sweet. We still aren't really sure why. They did taste amazing dipped in coffee though. And them not meeting our expectations didn't stop them from disappearing from the house in a couple of days, as they were devoured for breakfast and late night treats. Goes to show that while you can be disappointed in something, doesn't mean that you don't also like it. Regardless, it was really fun to bake with my mom and sister, they are 100% the experts so I usually just do what they tell me to, and everything works out fine. 

Homemade High Tea

One of the fun food things in Australia is that like England, they have a tea time/afternoon snack culture. Now, this isn't really as prevalent as it is in Britain, but it made me start thinking about High Tea. And this lead me to he idea of making a fancy high tea once I got home. And naturally, this sort of genius had to be shared with my baker of a sister. So we resolved to make ourselves a fancy homemade high tea when I got back to Chicago. For those of you that don't know, High Tea is a multi-course afternoon meal, usually consisting of finger sandwiches, pastries, and scones. My sister and I carefully planned out our tea, bought the ingredients, and spent an entire day preparing this meal. It was an ambitious endeavor, but really it turned out wonderfully. We even had menus (below). 

We had this wonderful fancy chocolate rose tea that my sister had gotten in London. We tried to make some fun tea treats to go along with it. We basically divided and conquered the cooking, but I had a couple of minor difficulties so my sister ended up helping me out some, especially with making things look nice. Our first course was a platter of fruit salads, which we decided to call the amuse bouche. I rolled cantaloupe balls in procuitto (yes it's a meat, but it's the only part of this meal that is), the saltiness of the procuitto and the sweetness of the melon go amazingly together. I also this crazy watermelon/feta salad. I constructed a cube of rectangular pieces and then garnished it with mint. It didn't turn out quite was pretty as I hoped for, but it tasted amazing. The winner of this salad was the mint, it brought out the freshness of both the fruit and the cheese. Can't wait to make this one again (though maybe not in cube form).

Our second course was the savory finger sandwiches and deviled eggs! This was fun to make because we got to choose what flavors we wanted to use. I ended up making 4 types of sandwich, and 2 kinds of deviled eggs. For the sandwiches we ended up making all vegetarian ones. I used two types of bread: light rye and honey wheat. I cut off the crusts and then cut the bread into the fun shapes of triangles and rectangles. I did 3 sandwiches on the rye and one on the honey wheat. The honey wheat one was pears and goat cheese. The first of the rye sandwiches were cream cheese and cucumber (classic tea sandwich). Next I made some eggs salad and made egg salad sandwiches. I tried not to use too much mayonnaise, but then didn't use enough and the egg salad didn't stay together all that well. We garnished those sandwiches with fresh chives (see below). The last sandwich was a pickle cheddar, and dill butter sandwich. This one was probably my favorite. The pickle and cheddar went together amazingly, but the dill butter really made this one. I actually infused the butter with dill and salt. This made it really dill tasting and fresh and it added another dimension to the sandwich.

Okay the deviled eggs. My mom gave me this wonderful book full of deviled egg recipes for a present. My sister and I decided to try two kinds of deviled eggs from the book. The first was Sunrise eggs (below left) and the second was Boursin Garlic eggs (below right). The Boursin ones were the winners! The sunrise eggs were infused with orange juice and sundried tomato pesto. I really wanted to like these eggs, but they just tasted a little too weird. The boursin ones on the other hand were out of this world. We added roasted garlic and herbed boursin cheese. We then garnished them with fresh chives. The creaminess of the boursin and the flavoring of the garlic and herbs made these eggs taste gourmet. We loved them, I will definitely make them again.

                         

Our next course was a tea time classic. Scones! I while I would have preferred Australian/British scones we instead used the awesome scone mix from World Market. We got the plain flavor, and I have to say these were absolutely amazing. While at World Market we found mini jams and clotted cream! So we got that to eat with the scones in the traditional manner. They were delicious and really fun.

After scones we got to the pastries, specifically cookies and cakes. We had Earl Grey Lavender Cupcakes (below left), made by my wonderful sister. She infused the cake with earl grey tea and the frosting with lavender extract. These were the perfect thing to go with tea, tea cupcakes! Next we had Petit Fours! Okay, these are my absolute favorite thing that my sister makes. They are her own invention of cake, call blush cake. This is almond cake with rose and orange extracts. And it's brilliant. For these petit fours she makes strawberry buttercream frosting for the middle layer and then dips them in orange glaze. They. Are. The. Best. And they take her a long time to make because they have so many components. She doesn't make them often, but did them for me as a back from Australia treat. Also they were a perfect addition to high tea. The last dessert in this course was Raspberry frosting sugar cookie sandwiches. These were also outstanding. We found this wonderful soft sugar cookie recipe, and used that for the cookies. My sister then made this wonderful raspberry buttercream that was  heavenly. Lastly she sugared the cookies with raspberry sugar. Is your mouth watering yet?

Our last course was Midgardises, little ending sweets. For this we made Lemon shortbread dark chocolate truffles… and we also bought some meringues from Trader Joes (below). The Truffles were made in a very similar fashion to my Tim Tam Truffles. We used shortbread cookies, lemon curd, and cream cheese frosting to make these. Also we used food coloring to make sure that the filling had a nice lemon yellow color. This time we stuck them in the fridge to harden for a hour or so before they were dipped in the chocolate. Also my sister did the dipping so they turned out pretty!

This tea was such a fun and exciting thing to do with a summer day!! Almost everything (looking at you sunrise eggs!) turned out excellently! It was also really fun to spend the day cooking and baking with my sister. She's the master dessert baker and watching her work reminds me that I have a ton to learn when it comes to baking and cooking, thankfully I have access to a wonderful teacher :D

Green Tea Lamingtons

Lamingtons are Australian tea cakes. They are generally vanilla sponge cake squares, covered in a frosting glaze and dipped in desiccated coconut. They are usually double layered and the filling is usually either chocolate or jam. I really wanted to make a traditional Aussie dessert before I left Australia. Originally I wanted to make Pavlova, which is a meringue with creme and fruit, but without an electric blender that was out. So I decided to do Lamingtons, but with a twist! And that twist is matcha! I made green tea lamingtons, and they were amazing. No seriously, they lasted about a day and a half before my housemates and I devoured them. The baking part of this recipe was easy, it was the assembly that was difficult.

I baked the cake using a box mix and added matcha powder, I didn't have as much as I wanted so the cake ended up with this cake that had a slight matcha taste, it was nice but I would use more next time. For this recipe it requires that I cut the cake into easily dippable squares. Due to this I had to be strategic with what pan I baked the cake in. I decided on the bread pan, rather than our round cake pan. This ended up being a good idea. The first step to the squares was to trim off them rounded top of the cake (above), I think next time I'll trim the sides to make it more even as well, the reason I didn't this time is because I was worried about not having enough cake.

The next step was to do the layering. I sliced the cake into two layers, which was harder than expected to cut evenly, so the top layer was a bit thicker than the bottom (above left). Next I melted dark chocolate in the microwave and spread it on the bottom layer of the cake (above right). I tried to do this quickly before it hardened up again. Then I stuck the top layer back onto the cake. Next I cut the cake into 15 squares (below left). The next move was to arrange them for the dipping. So I covered a baking sheet in baking parchment and then arranged them on the tray. 

The next step was to dip them in frosting and then cover them in desiccated coconut. Now desiccated is a fancy word for dryed and dehydrated. This is a special type of shredded coconut and in order to really make this treat work you need to buy this kind, it prevents the cakes from getting soggy. What I did was buy some store bought vanilla frosting, I then microwaved it for about 20 seconds (below left) and dipped each individual square in the frosting. I tried to make sure that it was completely covered. Next I quickly moved the cake to a bowl with the coconut in it and covered the frosted cake in the coconut, once again trying to cover it completely. Then I set it on the baking sheet to harden. While my fingers got really messy during this process, it actually worked out so much easier than I expected. First of all, the heated frosting turned into this glaze that sticked really well, and the coconut adhered to it amazingly. And then when it was covered in coconut, I could move it around and set it down without it sticking (below right). Also, as one of my housemates pointed out, I got better at it as I went along so the later squares were easier and prettier.

These cakes tasted amazing. The matcha, vanilla, coconut, and chocolate each added their own texture and flavor to the dessert, and meshed really well together. These are perfect with a cup of tea (or matcha haha) after dinner. Or with a cup of coffee for breakfast! Lamingtons are classic Australia and it makes me happy that I will be able to make these anytime I want at home and bring Australia with me!

Thoughts on this Dessert:

• Like I said, next time more matcha is going into this recipe.
• I would like to try different flavors for these. My sister makes this awesome cake called 'Blush Cake' and I think that it would be great with this recipe, but with rose jam filling. Also I'd try them with taro cloud cake for sure!
• I think that next time I'd use chocolate frosting instead of vanilla.
• When doing the dipping step, its important to reheat the frosting for 5-10 seconds or so after each cake to make sure the consistency stays right. Also to add more frosting to the bowl when it starts to get low so that you don't have to scrape the cake on the bowl. 

Really happy that my last dessert here is a really cool Australian one, and one that I could make my own. I found it really fulfilling to be able to make a recipe that was complicated but turned out well. 

Sweet Apple Sangria

So for my Birthday I was given a bottle of Savigon Blanc. Since we are getting down to the wire and I needed to drink it, and a couple of ciders that I still had, before we all leave I decided to use it to make sangria! Basically, this is an extremely simple, but very tasty Sangria that you can make in a matter of minutes. I sliced up 4 small apples, 1 pear, and 2 mandarin oranges. Then I poured the bottle of wine, as well as 2 bottles of cider over them. I mixed the entire thing with 3 shot glasses worth of orange juice. Mix this carefully because the cider will fizz up. Then I stuck it in the fridge or 5 hours or so. We enjoyed our tasty drink/dessert while watching the Disney movie Frozen :P An excellent way to end a day! We all agreed that the ranking of the fruit was the pear, then oranges, then apples. Really the pears stole the show here, they sucked up the wine in a perfect way and were really wonderful. I think that I should have mixed this a little better because a bunch of the alcohol sunk to the bottom. However, even with that it really didn't taste alcoholic despite it mostly being wine and cider. A dangerous drink indeed :) I really enjoy sangria, and I look forward to making it more now that I can legally buy alcohol in the states!!

Quorn Fajitas

Quorn is a meatless protein that is synthesized from fungi. One of my vegetarian friends had been telling me about it for awhile now. They don't sell it in the states, but they do in Australia so I decided to get some to try as my last involved meal here. I got the fajita kind, it was sliced into strips and marinated in this awesome fajita seasoning (below). I fried up some peppers and onions in olive oil and bbq seasoning and then added the quorn at the end. It really was like making a fajita with meat, and was really simple.

To add to the meal I made some homemade refried beans… these were kinda guess work than anything else. I basically smashed up kidney beans with a fork and mixed in some cheese and heated them up (below right). I then assembled my fajita! I had mild salsa, shredded mozzarella, retired beans, and the fajita mixture. 

I assembled my beast (below) and as per usual with fajitas, it was an incredible mess, but it was a delicious mess! I really liked the Quron. I tasted like the seasoning and the consistency as actually like chicken. The peppers were cooked perfectly too. My only compliant is that it could have used so avocados, guac, or sour cream to even out the spiciness of the seasoning and the salsa. The reason I didn't buy any is because there is so little time left I didn't really want to buy too much extra food. It was still a great meal though. And I have enough fajita mix for 2 more meals. I used it to make a fajita salad last night and tonight I'm going to make a fajita quesadilla. This was a great way to get some protein and this is a really interesting way of getting it since it doesn't involve any chemical intensive agriculture. Right in line with my flexitarian ideals!

Balsamic Sweet Potato Chips

Snacks for dinner! After I made the Tim Tam Truffles I was not in the mood to make anything complicated for dinner. So I opted to try and make sweet potato chips. Super east and quick, they turned out pretty well. Basically I sliced 2 small sweet potatoes rather thinly (after steaming them in the microwave for about 2 minutes). Then marinated them in Balsamic vinegar with garlic salt, by shaking them in a tupperware container until they were covered (below left). I then arranged them on a plate and microwaved them for about 8 minutes, sprinkling more garlic salt before doing so. The before and after pics are below right, they shrink up and get crispy. Also I found letting them sit for a minute or so after the microwave helps them crisp up even more (as tempting as it was to just go ahead and eat them). This was a delicious and easy meal that I would usually do as a snack, but it also sufficed for a light dinner. 

Dark Chocolate Tim Tam Truffles

Volia! I give you the ultimate Tim Tam dessert, Tim Tam Truffles! One of my friends in the Pathfinder Program at Wash U makes these AMAZING oreo truffles, so I was inspired by her to do the same thing, but with Tim Tams. This recipe is actually really simple, but seems sophisticated. It's only 3 ingredients. Tim Tams, cream cheese, and melted chocolate. The result is a truffle that looks (if you roll it correctly) and tastes like something you would buy at a gourmet candy store (below). 

I used 1.5 packs of dark chocolate Tim Tams for this recipe, but in retrospect I would have used 2 whole packs instead. I blended the cookies (entire thing) until it was crumbs (below right). Then I added the cream cheese and blended that as well. This took awhile because I was using a magic bullet blender, which is rather small and really isn't made for this kind of mixing. When it was completely mixed to the desired consistence (bottom below), I stuck some dark chocolate into the microwave, for 4 30 second intervals, stirring in between. Then I rolled the Tim Tam mixture into balls and dipped it into the chocolate. This worked really well at first and I got about 3 completely covered truffles, but then the chocolate started to harden again, and it got a lot more difficult. 

I did eventually manage to roll them all. There were 15 truffles in total. After they were rolled I placed the cookie tray they were on in the fridge for about 3 hours. Then consolidated them in tupperware (below) and placed them back in the fridge. The refrigerator keeps the chocolate from melting and keeps the truffles together, so make sure you store them this way. My housemates and I agreed these were absolutely amazing. Yet another of my favorite desserts that I've made here, and it's so fun to bake with Tim Tams!

Thoughts on this Dessert:

• What a winner! Super easy and unique
• I would love to try these with other Tim Tam flavors. Mainly the Mint Slices, Caramel Tim Tams or the Orange ones. Unfortunately, I think that once I get back to the states I'm not going to want to waste my precious Tim Tams on baking… so while I might not get a chance to try these ideas, readers with access to Tim Tams should! Wish I had tried this earlier in the semester
• Next time I think I'm going to roll the truffles and stick them in the fridge before rolling them in the melted chocolate. This will help them stay together better and hopefully cut down on the time between rolling, so the chocolate won't solidify as quickly.

This were so fun to make and even more fun to eat. And a great twist on an Aussie favorite during SWOTVAC here at UQ. 

Feta Chickpea Salad

I've seen a couple of vegetarian recipes that use chickpeas as a veggie substitute for tuna and chicken salads. I love chicken salad (especially my mom's), so I decided to try something along those lines but with a Mediterranean twist. I bought two cans large chicken peas (which happened to be on sale for 80 cents each!), a block of low fat feta cheese, some spinach, a capsicum and a cucumber. I drained the chickpeas, and then mixed them with the feta (chopped), 3 heaping handfuls of fresh spinach, 1/3 a cucumber (the seeds were taken out and the excess water dried), 1 chopped capsicum, and 5 chopped semidried tomatoes (also dried of oil). I mixed this together extremely well in a large bowl. When I first thought of making this recipe I was planning on either added hummus or coleslaw dressing to give it a creamer texture, turns out that wasn't necessary. The feta turned out to be a lot softer and creamier than expected and that mixed with the chickpeas being damp and soft from the can, meant that the salad had a wonderful texture without any additions. I made this with the intention of taking it to the library for lunch for the next three days, I did so today and I was the perfect thing to eat. It was portable (see below) and filling and tasted amazing. Seriously, I felt like I had made something that you would buy out of a salad case in the gourmet section of the grocery store. I was super happy with how this recipe turned out, it's something I would made for a BBQ side or bring to a potluck, full of protein and hopefully enjoyed by vegetarians and meat eaters alike!

Apple Quiche

So I've been wanting to make this for awhile,  but have been trying to wait until I finish the chili first (spoiler: the chili is still not finished I made enough for me to eat it every night for 1.5 weeks). Eventually, I just decided to make this anyway. This apple quiche is based on this recipe. I basically followed this exactly but added a lot more cheese. Specifically, smoked gouda on top of the cheddar the recipe calls for. I cooked 2 large and 1 small pink lady apples on the stove in a cup of hard cider, with sprigs of rosemary. This was done for about 10 minutes or so. I mixed skim milk with 4 eggs, and whipped them together, layered phyllo dough on this pie pan, and shredded the gouda cheese. When the apples were done I poured most of them and the cider into the phyllo. Then added all the gouda and some of the cheddar, as well as some rosemary. Then I added the rest of the apples, more rosemary, and poured the egg mixture on top. The eggs sunk through, layered into the dish. Lastly I topped the entire thing with more cheddar and put it in the oven at 375 F for 35 minutes. It turned out fabulously. The cheese and apples went great together, and the cheese had kinda melted into the eggs. The cheese on top was nice and crispy. All together this was a really great dish and the best part is that you can have it for any meal of the day. I had a slice for dinner last night with a salad (below), but also had one for breakfast this morning and it was wonderful in the morning too! A really great, unique, and versatile meal. 

Egg and Cream Cheese Sandwich

This was my lunch yesterday. Super simply but yummy and nutritious! I made a fried egg sandwich with rice cakes. In addition to the egg I put light cream cheese, cucumbers, and smashed avo on the sandwich. This added a lot of flavor and helped keep the sandwich together, it was absolutely awesome. I haven't had something with cucumber, avocado, and cream cheese since last summer, and it's one of my favorite things, so this made me really happy. A nice light breakfast or lunch, that's quick to prepare and delicious to eat!

Cinnamon Glazed Apple Banana Muffins

Every once in awhile I actually have some time on my hands. And last week I felt like using some of this time to make dessert! I went to our local grocery store and told myself i'd spend $10 on baking supplies. I ended up decided to make these muffins from a honey banana muffin mix. But I wanted to spice them up so I bought some apples and frosting ingredients as well. My general thought was to cook apples into the muffins and then frost them with a cinnamon cream cream frosting. The apples worked outstandingly. I cut a large pink lady apple into small pieces and then simmered it in a pan of apple cider, brown sugar, and cinnamon. I cooked them at a high simmer for around 15 minutes or so. Basically until they got soft and brown (below right).

As the apples were cooking, I prepared the cake mix. I added water and eggs as it said on the box, but I noticed that it would only make 8 muffins. I decided to add flour, sugar, and eggs to the mix to make the recipe bigger. This worked out well because I had enough batter for 15 muffins instead of 8 them. another thing to note was when I was mixing the apples in, I wanted to pout the excess cider/sugar mix in too, but the batter started to get watery so I stopped. However, the muffins got a bit spongier than expected when I baked them, so I would add the cider mix next time. I baked them for 20 minutes and that was the perfect amount of time. The rose quite a lot and resulted in this wonderful muffin top shape (below).

As I let them cool, I started to make the frosting. I added 1/4 a cup of skim milk to 1 block of light cream cheese. I then added 3/4 a cup of brown sugar and lot and lots of cinnamon. I beat this mix together. Then I added powdered sugar, until I had the consistency I wanted. What ended up happening is that I added the entire bag of powdered sugar, a little bit a a time, and didn't actually get frosting. The mixture I ended up with was more of a icing or glaze than a frosting (below left). While unexpected, it was actually delicious so I had no problems. I was pretty liquidy when I spread it onto the muffins, I tried a frosting bag, but it broke, so I ended up spooning it on and that worked really well. Though, it was a really really messy process.

These muffins were stellar! The apples added so much to the cupcakes, they were sweet and whenever you got one in a bite they made it amazing! The banana, cinnamon, and apple flavors went really well together, and the glaze helped keep the muffins from drying our and really took them to the next level! The icing actually solidified a bit the next day which was perfect and made less of a mess. I had these for breakfast the next two mornings with coffee with cinnamon in it. They were the perfect morning treat! My housemates also really liked them and they disappeared quickly.

Also I had a TON of  icing left over. My housemates and I had some spoonfuls of it and discussed good ways to eat it. Our brainstorm came up with these ideas. Eating it by the spoonful (classic), spreading it on toast, raisin cinnamon toast is the best, drizzling it on a piece of toast with Nutella, and dipping fruit in it. I sliced up when of my left over apples a couple of days later and dipped the pieces in the icing, which was much more solid after sitting in the fridge (below). It was amazing!!!! Also a "healthy" way to eat the left over icing. This was a really successful on the whim dessert. It might be good with actual banana chunks, as well as apples to make the muffins even fruitier!